Gather the Daughters

De: Jennie Melamed

Narrado por: Laurence Bouvard

For fans of Emma Cline's The Girls and Emily St John Mandel's Station 11, this dark, unsettling and hugely compelling story of an isolated island cult will get under your skin.

On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day reign inside and outside the home, while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood. But before that time comes, there is an island ritual that offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps to roam wild: they run, they fight, they sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. They are free.

It is at the end of one of these summers, as the first frost laces the ground, that one of the younger girls witnesses something she was never supposed to see. And she returns home, muddy and terrified, clutching in her small hand a truth that could unravel their carefully constructed island world forever.

©2017 Jennie Melamed (P)2017 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Good novel, kid story book narration.

I'm actually still listening to this, and it's a good novel. But what is it with American narrators? They perform like we're an audience of 6 year-olds, or like they're doing the voiceover for a detergent commercial. I usually avoid American narrators for that reason, but I really wanted to get this audiobook, so now I have to put up with this bright, bouncy, optimistic, sing-song delivery. This is a dystopian novel, for heaven's sake. It shouldn't be read like it's Winnie the Pooh. But some people won't mind this, I suppose.

Could have done with some more details (spoiler)

How did they end up on the island? Why? What motivates the men? A lot of questions remain unanswered after having finished the book.